


start a wildfire

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: tumblr fics & ficlets, part ii. [26]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Jealousy, M/M, Oblivious Shane Madej, Past Ryan Bergara/Helen Pan, Pining, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 08:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14397765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: “I saw you kissing Zack at the holiday party. And that night a few weeks ago, at the bar with Steven...”“Wait a second,” Ryan says, and there’s something in his voice, a note of wariness and hurt, that hits Shane as viscerally as a punch to the face and spurs him into fucking spitting it out, because he doesn’t want Ryan to spend any longer than a few seconds thinking that this is some kind of disapproval, that Shane isuncomfortablearound him.“I want you to kissme. Not Zack or Steven or anyone else. Me.”





	start a wildfire

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the prompt "Can I ask for a fic where Shane doesn't know that Ryan is bi and when he sees Ryan with a guy for the first time, he gets really jealous?" it's also vaguely inspired by a prompt [Ella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elasticella) and I have talked about, which was "surprise i'm not homophobic i just only want ryan kissing me?" I couldn't bring myself to do the internalized homophobia bit, but the rest is along the same lines. 
> 
> side pairings that pop up briefly: Ryan/Zack and Ryan/Steven, plus implied Andrew/Steven. rating is more for copious alcohol consumption than anything else. 
> 
> title from [Wildfire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_hzZKIjVu8) by blink-182.

Shane makes it approximately three hours into the great BuzzFeed Holiday Party of 2017 before he manages to spill a drink down his front.

If he were a little more intoxicated, or if the color of his drink blended in better with the color of his shirt, he would think about just grabbing a new drink to replace the one he’s currently wearing. Alas, vodka cranberry on a white shirt, especially in the dim light, kind of looks like blood, and if there’s one thing he doesn’t feel like doing, it’s answering a ton of well-intended but useless questions about why he’s bleeding.

(He _knew_ he should have gone with a red flannel instead.) 

Thankfully, he keeps a sweater at his desk for emergencies (which are usually days where the air conditioning is turned up so high that he ends up with goosebumps on every inch of exposed skin), so after polishing off the last inch of liquid in his glass (it’s straight vodka, and he makes a note to get someone other than Steven to mix his next one), he sets it down on the nearest table and wanders out of the crowded room. There are a few people hanging out in the hallways, but as Shane heads farther into the building, they become few and far between, until it’s eventually just him and his footsteps.

(That being said, he’s sure that there are a few other people nearby, tucked into darkened offices and bathroom stalls, taking advantage of the otherwise empty spaces. It _is_ a BuzzFeed party, after all.)

When he makes it to the area of the office that contains his desk, only the faint neon-green and electric blue glow from a few laptops and power bars illuminates the expansive space. If he squints, he can see his hoodie draped over the back of his chair, and he heads in that direction, wincing as his soaked shirt sticks to his chest. After a few steps, he realizes that he can hear something that isn’t just the faint music from the party, and he stops in his tracks, one foot half-raised. 

He’s not alone in the room.

There was a pillar blocking his view of Ryan’s desk when he first entered, but he has a clear line of sight to it now, or, rather, a clear line of sight to two people making out against it. The person leaning back against the desk, half-perched on the edge of it, is backlit by the glow from a screen, and there’s something familiar about the shape of their body, the breadth of their shoulders and the swoop of their neck. The longer Shane remains motionless, simply staring at them even though he _really_ should be backtracking, the more he realizes that there’s actually something familiar about _both_ of them. It takes a few moments for the familiarity to turn into full realization, but when it clicks like a lighter sparking to life, he barely manages to stop himself from saying _oh_ out loud.

That certainly explains why he hasn’t seen Ryan _or_ Zack for nearly half an hour. 

“Fuck,” Zack groans softly, body pressing forward, pinning Ryan back against the desk. Ryan drops his hands to Zack’s waist and fully hops up onto his desk, knocking what sounds like a dozen pens to the floor in the process. His head tilts to the side, and although it’s difficult to be sure, based on the shuddering gasp Zack lets out, Shane suspects that Ryan is trailing kisses up the side of his neck, maybe mixing in some bites. 

Unexpectedly, his stomach starts to churn like the ocean on a turbulent day.

“Feel good?” Ryan asks, voice low and certain, almost _cocky_. It’s a voice that seems designed to do one thing and one thing only.

Namely, get someone out of their clothes in record time.

Shane carefully backs out of the room before he can find out if Ryan’s voice has that effect on Zack, takes it one step at a time so that he doesn’t bump into a desk or chair and alert them to his presence. Once he’s made it back to the hallway, he yanks his phone from his pocket, orders an Uber and slinks out of the building without heading back into the fray of the party to say goodbye. The cool night air brushing over where the vodka has soaked through his shirt and into his skin makes him shudder as he climbs into the backseat.

On the way back to his apartment, leaning against the window and watching all the neon and halogen lights blur by, his head starts to spin. It has to be from imbibing too much. There’s no way that his aching head and churning stomach has anything to do with what he saw, with the sound of Ryan’s voice and the surety with which he’d been conducting himself, even though he’s never once mentioned, even in passing, that he was anything less than straight.

There’s no way the two things are connected. It _has_ to be the alcohol. 

Once he’s back at his apartment, he has the foresight to text Jen and Steven to let them know that he’s alright and just wanted to bow out a little early, before he strips off his jeans and stained shirt and collapses onto his bed. When he closes his eyes, he can still see Ryan in silhouette, hopping up onto his desk and tugging Zack in closer.

Thankfully, before he has to try and shove the image out of his mind, he falls asleep. 

He wakes up with an absolutely vicious hangover that makes him curse the existence of both light and alcohol. Thankfully, by the time nighttime comes back around, it’s dissipated.

The thoughts about Ryan, however, have not.

&.

As the weeks go by, the thoughts don’t fade.

For a while, Shane thinks about just _asking_ Ryan about it, asking if he has an actual thing going on with Zack, but before he can figure out a way to ask that isn’t overtly rude or reveals what he saw at the party, it’s answered for him. A week or so after New Year’s, Zack bows out of their group plans by saying he has a date, and Ryan slaps him on the back in what truly seems like a genuine congratulations. It quiets some of the thoughts that have been capering around Shane’s mind since the holiday party.

But only some of them.

He knows that Ryan’s sexuality is none of his business, but he can’t help but be curious. He can’t help but wonder if what he saw was just a one-off, if what seemed like confidence and experience on Ryan’s part was actually just brought on by too much alcohol. Conversely, he can’t help but wonder if maybe he was just so used to Ryan and Helen being together that, after their amicable breakup, it never occurred to him that Ryan could be anything but straight.

(And _that_ line of thought just makes him feel like a jackass. He works for _BuzzFeed_ , for fuck’s sake.)

But regardless of what he wonders about, regardless of all the questions he still has, he doesn’t say anything. Their friendship is too important for him to risk over something so dumb. 

If Ryan wants to tell him, he’ll tell him.

&.

He manages to stay quiet until February.

A bunch of them head out for drinks after work on a Wednesday, spill into a bar a few blocks away that’s already reaching capacity. Shane eventually spies a booth emptying out, slides through the crowd and steals it before the server can even come around to wipe the table clean. Ryan and Steven, plus a few others, pile in after him, holding their drinks aloft so that they don’t spill.

At any other time, Shane would probably be hyper-fixated on the fact that Ryan is pressed directly against his side, that their thighs are aligned, that he can smell Ryan’s cologne every time he inhales.

Instead, all he can focus on is how Ryan is flirting with Steven.

The more drinks they pound back, the worse it gets. Ryan laughs at all of Steven’s jokes, even though some of them are absolutely horrible, makes fun of him when Steven splutters on a particularly strong drink, even tussles his hair at one point. Eventually, Steven makes a comment about drinking too much and drops his head to Ryan’s shoulder, and without a moment of hesitation, Ryan presses a quick kiss to the crown of Steven’s head.

Shane’s stomach was already starting to feel a bit off, but it suddenly feels hollow, like he hasn’t eaten in days. 

“Maybe dancing will make you feel better,” Ryan says to Steven, slinging one arm around his shoulders. Shane can’t follow Ryan’s logic there (although he’s certainly used to that feeling), but it seems to work on Steven, because he nods and smiles.

“Worth a shot, right?” With that, he slides out of the booth, wobbling a little when he stands up. Before Ryan follows after him, he turns to face Shane.

“You good?” he asks. Truthfully, Shane doesn’t know how to answer that, so he goes for the answer that Ryan is less likely to question.

“Yeah. All good, buddy.”

“Alright.” Ryan grins at him and knocks their knees together before he too slides out of the booth and follows Steven into the throng of people filling the dance floor. As soon as they’re both out of sight, Shane says his goodbyes to everyone else and heads for the door.

The night is cool, but it’s only a few blocks from the bar to his apartment, so he decides to walk it, hopes that the brisk air will have the additional side effect of clearing his head. 

It doesn’t.

Instead, his thoughts keep drifting back to the bar or, more specifically, to the dance floor, where Ryan and Steven are very likely pressed together, where it’s all too possible that Ryan’s mouth is pressed to the swoop of Steven’s neck or to his mouth.

By the time he makes it home, the thought of simply scooping his brain out of his skull for a few hours is almost unbearably appealing.

He goes into work the next day brutally hungover. Coffee doesn’t do anything, the bright lights stab into his vision, and the thought of spending the next nine hours staring at his computer makes his head hurt more. He’s utterly exhausted.

Which is probably why he finds himself asking Ryan about the night.

“Looked like you and Steven were having fun last night,” he says, idly clicking through his emails. “Is there something going on there?” Once he realizes what he’s said, his brain fills with sirens and screaming klaxons for a few moments of chaos before he manages to contain himself. Now that the words are out in the air, irretrievable and impossible to take back, there’s no point in panicking. 

Besides, Ryan doesn’t look mad or even annoyed. He simply shrugs and takes a sip from his still-steaming mug of coffee.

“Nothing serious,” he answers, running his hand through his disastrously messy hair. “He’s fun to flirt with, and he’s cute when he’s drunk. But I’m pretty sure Andrew would kill me if I actually asked him out.”

“What do you mean?” It’s news to Shane although, admittedly, it’s not like he knows much of _anything_ about Andrew; none of them do, except maybe Steven.

Ryan snorts and glances sideways.

“Seriously, man? He’s holding a _huge_ fucking torch for Steven. He just hasn’t admitted it to himself yet.”

Abruptly, Shane is sucker punched by a realization that has nothing to do with Andrew and everything to do with how his own brain has been acting the past few weeks. 

“Oh,” he mutters, turning back to his computer, hoping that the heat that he can feel filling his face isn’t overtly visible. “Never noticed.”

“Huh. That’s weird. I thought you could see everything from up there.”

“If that’s the best tall joke you can come up with today, I’m sincerely disappointed in you.”

“Oh, don’t worry, big guy. I’m just getting started.”

Before they can bicker more, Adam wanders over and recruits Ryan for something they’re doing in the Tasty kitchen. As soon as Ryan leaves the room, Shane sighs, pushes away from his desk and gets to his feet. He’s not getting any work done anyways; his thoughts have turned into a giant feedback loop, a Mobius strip.

He thinks he knows what’s happening to his mind, but some confirmation would be nice.

He finds Sara in one of the open-concept spaces, curled up in a purple beanbag chair with her laptop. Shane drops down to the floor beside her, leans his head against her knee and sighs again. 

“That sounds like a life crisis sigh if I’ve ever heard one.”

“I need to ask you a question,” Shane answers. Sara hums in acknowledgment. “What does jealousy feel like?”

“What? Have you _seriously_ never been jealous before?”

“Humor me.” Sara goes quiet for few moments, drops one hand to the top of his head and idly starts brushing through his hair.

“I guess my face gets hot?” she starts. “My whole head gets warm, and it’s like, whatever you’re jealous of is stuck in your brain, like a thorn.”

“Like it’s haunting you?” 

Abruptly, Sara laughs. Thankfully, it’s an amused sound, not cruel or malicious.

“Oh my God, this is about Ryan, isn’t it?”

“What? How-”

“Because I’m a genius.” Gently, she pulls her legs out from underneath his head and brings them up into the beanbag. “Just talk to him. I think you might be surprised by how well it goes.” 

“Are you saying that because you _know_ something or because you have a feeling?”

“Just a feeling. But I’m usually not wrong.”

Shane suspects that this situation might be the exception, but he doesn’t say that out loud. Instead, he thanks her and heads to the kitchen to grab his third cup of coffee of the day. Ryan still isn’t back at his desk when Shane returns, and as he goes back to skimming through his emails, Shane thinks about how best to proceed from here.

At some point, he _is_ going to have to talk to Ryan, if only because he knows that, if he tries to keep this contained inside of himself, it’s going to spring out like a jack-in-the-box, probably at the most inopportune of times, and if it’s going to come out anyways, he wants it to be under his own terms, in a situation of his own choosing.

He just isn’t sure what that situation should be.

&.

The right situation comes along two weeks later.

They’re back out on the road for Unsolved, doing an episode on the swamp ape of Florida. The investigation had gotten them nothing more than mosquito bites, just as Shane had expected (although, admittedly, if any state was going to have a cryptid problem, he thinks it would be Florida). They head back to the hotel once they’re done filming; it’s too late to do any sightseeing, and Shane’s pretty sure that if he doesn’t shower off the sweat of the day, he’s going to die of pure disgust with himself.

When he comes out of the bathroom, Ryan is stretched out on his bed, holding his phone over his face, thumb flicking at the screen. His hair is flattened against his head from the stupid helmet he insisted on wearing most of the day, and there’s a smudge of dirt along his cheek that Shane wants to trace with his thumb.

Suddenly, it feels like this is the time and place to talk about it: this motel room, on the outskirts of a tiny Florida town, with the air conditioning wheezing and the lamp casting shadows on the ugly beige walls. It feels like, if he doesn’t get it out now, his chest might actually burst. 

So he stops trying to hold it in. 

“I saw you kissing Zack,” he blurts out as he drops down onto his own bed. He hears Ryan shift and drop his phone with a muted thump, but Shane firmly keeps his eyes fixed on the carpet between his bare feet. “At the holiday party, I mean.” 

“Yeah?” The mattress squeaks loudly, and Shane glances up just long enough to see that Ryan has rolled onto his side to face him. When Ryan doesn’t say anything else further, Shane nods and takes a deep breath.

“Yeah. And that night a few weeks ago, at the bar with Steven, when you kissed his head...” It’s too late for him to back out now, he knows that, but getting the damn words out is turning out to be even more difficult than he expected.

“Wait a second,” Ryan says, and there’s something in his voice, a note of wariness and hurt, that hits Shane as viscerally as a punch to the face and spurs him into fucking spitting it out, because he doesn’t want Ryan to spend any longer than a few seconds thinking that this is some kind of disapproval, that Shane is _uncomfortable_ around him.

“I want you to kiss _me_. Not Zack or Steven or anyone else. Me.”

For what feels like eternity, the only sound in the room is the air conditioner groaning. Eventually, Ryan’s mattress squeaks again, and his legs appear in Shane’s line of sight as he swings them over the edge and plants his feet on the ground.

“Really?” Shane’s face feels absurdly hot, like a balloon full of blood that’s about to burst. He doesn’t trust his own voice to remain steady, so he settles for nodding. “Do you want to kiss me _back_?”

There’s no mistaking the teasing lilt in Ryan’s voice, and Shane finally allows himself to look up. Ryan is smiling at him, brighter than any neon sign Shane has ever seen, and a laugh of sheer and utter relief spills from Shane’s mouth.

“Yeah,” he answers, a matching grin spreading across his own face. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well, thank God, or that would be really fucking awkward.” Ryan gets up, crosses the tiny strip of space between them, and settles down on the edge of Shane’s mattress, so that they’re pressed together at the hip. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for months, man. I just didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“I am. It just... took me awhile to figure that out.”

“Well, no sense in wasting any more time, right?” When Shane turns his head, Ryan is mere inches away, head already tilted up, dark eyes glinting in the dim lamplight. Shane swallows heavily before he closes his eyes, leans down, and kisses Ryan for what is hopefully the first time of many. 

Once their lips are pressed together, Shane stays motionless. He doesn’t want to risk fucking things up by forging ahead recklessly, and it’s one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do; Ryan’s mouth is warm and a little chapped, and he tastes faintly of coffee from earlier in the day, and Shane wants nothing more than to see what else he tastes like, wants to discover exactly what Ryan likes, what makes him gasp and curse and moan. 

Ryan backs away first and slowly opens his eyes, like he’s waking up from a dream. The smudge of dirt on his cheek looks like a bruise, and Shane idly thumbs at it.

“You’re a mess,” he comments. Ryan just groans and reaches up to scrub harshly at his face with his sleeve.

“Fuck.” Once he’s scrubbed hard enough to turn the surrounding skin red (but not hard enough to get rid of the dirt), he leans in and presses a blink of a kiss to the corner of Shane’s mouth. “I’m gonna go have a shower. And then, we’re gonna do a whole lot more of _that_.”

“You do realize we have to sleep at some point,” Shane comments, stomach full of nervous energy as he glances over at the alarm clock on the nightstand between the two beds, which reads _1:30_ in radioactive green font. 

“Fuck sleep,” Ryan murmurs, leaning in for one last kiss that makes Shane’s chest ache before he gets to his feet. “Don’t move.” 

“Not moving,” Shane says, raising his hands in surrender as Ryan grabs his duffel bag. Once Ryan has disappeared into the bathroom, Shane falls back on the mattress and finds himself smiling up at the stuccoed ceiling, no matter how hard he tries to reel himself in. On a whim, he grabs his phone from the nightstand and sends a text to Sara.

_you were right, the talk with ryan went great_

Only seconds later, she responds with two texts, the first of which is a flurry of emoticons (mostly hearts) and the second of which reads _**told you so. you can pay me back with coffee.**_

&.

Once Ryan is out of the shower, they make out until five o’clock in the morning, until Shane is littered with bruises from Ryan’s mouth, and his chest aches from being breathless. They pass out in the same bed, half sprawled over each other, and end up getting no more than two hours of sleep before they have to pack and head off for the airport. 

The exhaustion is a price he’s more than willing to pay.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
